


a kind of loneliness

by backdoor (symmetrophobic)



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Gen, and jeongin centric, gen feels ficlet, mildly changbin centric, through the eyes of each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28241649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symmetrophobic/pseuds/backdoor
Summary: jeongin finds changbin on the fifth floor balcony of their company building.they have a conversation, as bandmates would.
Relationships: Seo Changbin & Yang Jeongin | I.N, Seo Changbin/Yang Jeongin | I.N
Comments: 6
Kudos: 67





	a kind of loneliness

Jeongin finds Changbin on the fifth-floor garden balcony, sitting cross-legged on a deck chair.

“Why are you here?” Jeongin asks. Changbin looks embarrassed. He’s balancing one hand on top of his laptop, inching the screen up and down, the edges cutting pink lines into his wrist.

“I’m working. Why are _you_ here?”

“I’m looking for my water bottle, but I guess it’s not here,” the maknae says, without thinking much. He hovers for a moment. “You’re working on a Friday night, hyung?”

“Yeah. Your hyung is just that hardworking, Innie,” Changbin holds up a halfhearted fingergun. There’s an unopened can of black coffee on the faux glass table beside him, condensation running down the sides onto the uneven surface.

“I heard Jisung ditched you for that movie,” Jeongin says bluntly. “And you asked Felix for dinner after that, but he was already going with Chan, and you didn’t want to third wheel.”

Changbin lets out a long sigh, flopping back onto the chair. “ _Yah_ , do you have to make it sound so bad?”

The younger boy grins, a toothy smile, before thumping on the deck chair beside Changbin. “Because you’d rather be alone than ask me?”

The rapper casts a doubtful look at him. “Would you have said yes?”

Jeongin shrugs. “Probably not.”

Changbin snorts, and turns away.

For a while, it’s just the sound of the sun setting and the day going to bed. Changbin’s staring out at the view of steel and glass office buildings when Jeongin turns to look at him. He’s got a black cap pulled over his head today, plus the standard-issue dark blue JYP office jacket over his yellow jumper. He looks like a tired little bumblebee, and the thought makes Jeongin smile.

“What are you laughing at, punk?” The older boy glares halfheartedly, with a frown that he probably thinks makes him look dark and menacing.

People are such funny things, Jeongin thinks. You could think you know someone, trust them with your entire life and all your secrets, and have them turn out to be the jolly worst things on the fucking planet. People were fickle, unpredictable, lying little shits by nature. It was such a tiring experience.

But Changbin, as much as he tries to insist otherwise, was a defective person in that respect. Changbin, who always wears black when he’s feeling closed off, and pastel when he’s comfortable. Who drinks lattes when he’s in a good mood and black coffee when he thinks he should be punished.

Who always tries to be with the hyungs, and then the 2000-liners, and always gets bounced off either side, like an enthusiastic but repellant rubber ball. Changbin’s heart runs on clockwork, and _tick tick ticks_ away on his sleeve.

What a funny hyung, Jeongin thinks. “Your face is funny.”

“What a _brat_ ,” Changbin half sighs, half wails. “Why do I have to deal with you?”

“Because everyone else ditched us to go hang out on their own,” Jeongin says, still grinning. Changbin throws his head back and laughs at that, laptop almost slipping off his knees.

This is the natural state of Changbin, Jeongin thinks. Not his happiest form, or his realest, but the one that’s the most _him_ , a precarious intersection between optimism and resignation.

“Oh, fuck, it was true, but you didn’t have to say it,” he deflates against the chair. He holds out a fist, and Jeongin considers denying him, but graciously returns the fistbump. “Well, at least we have each other, Innie.”

“Ew,” Jeongin retracts his hand.

“Hey,” Changbin sighs, pressing his knuckles into his temples. “Honestly, Innie. Am I too casual with you kids? Is that why I’m no fun to be around?”

“We’re only two years apart, you’re not that old, hyung,” Jeongin deadpans. This face of Changbin, the one that doesn’t fake brag on VLive about how many middle school admirers he had to make things less awkward for himself and for Hyunjin, the one that’s tired and honest, is rare enough, but still a hot coal on Jeongin’s palms. He wishes he were like Chan, who knows how to deal with everyone and everything. “Maybe you should start screaming at them, hyung. Make Felix go down and buy you convenience store coffee between practices.”

“Ah, you know he’d probably actually do it if I asked,” Changbin complains, like that’s a bad thing. “He’s too soft. It's the _rest_ of you who are always in on some exciting secret I’ll never know about, no matter how much I ask.”

“The rest of _them_ ,” Jeongin corrects. He doesn’t say anything else.

Changbin looks over, blinking slowly. “What, you feel like you’re not part of them?”

“I never was,” again, another full stop. Changbin keeps looking at him, though, and forcibly adds a little tail to that period. Jeongin rolls his eyes. “I’m not part of _anything,_ hyung. They’re in a league of their own. A year makes a lot of difference.”

“Yeah," Changbin nods slowly. "I know how that feels.”

“Anyway," Jeongin adds brusquely. "Don’t you have your own thing going on with 3RACHA, hyung?”

The older boy sighs, folding his arms across his chest and gnawing on his lower lip. In his jacket, he looks even smaller. “You know, Innie…sometimes I think we’re all chummy and lifelong friends and everything we’re jacked up to be on TV, but we don’t really know until we realise we don’t know each other at all, do we?”

Jeongin brings his legs up to his chest. “Does that matter now?”

Changbin shrugs. “So you think we should just…go on with life? Never really knowing?”

The maknae watches with a tedious, careful attention. “I don’t think it was your fault for not knowing. Or any of us. If that’s what you’re wondering. It’s just life.”

The sun has almost fully set by this point, and Changbin’s bathed in the warm, thin light of the overhead lamps. His laptop remains untouched, balanced on his knees.

“I suppose,” he says with a faint smile, then. He leans over to poke a knuckle into Jeongin’s cheek. “I never knew you felt this way, _Innie-yah._ ”

Jeongin threatens to bite his finger. Then he grabs the coffee, cracking it open and taking a defiant sip, before cringing at the bitterness. “Why do you drink this trash, hyung?”

“I don’t know,” Changbin shrugs. He looks at the coffee, and seems to remember something. “Hey, I’ve still got those movie tickets Jisung ditched, I think we can still make it! Do you like comedy?”

Jeongin thinks about this for a while. He’s no stranger to loneliness, but he’s not about to insist on being its _friend_ either. “Are you going to buy the popcorn?”

“Yah, aren’t free tickets enough?” Changbin huffs, but he’s already standing with the laptop, disgruntled. Jeongin crosses his arms and doesn’t budge. “Okay, _okay_ , hyung will buy you popcorn, happy?”

The maknae stands, beaming. “Okay, let’s go~”

“What a brat,” Changbin throws an arm around his shoulders, and Jeongin bites back the jab about needing a stepladder to reach. “Do you need to find your bottle first?”

“Oh,” Jeongin pauses. “I lied. I wasn’t looking for my bottle,” he looks straight ahead, as they walk back into the building. “I was looking for you.”

Changbin looks surprised again. “What for?”

The youngest flips through his response options. He thinks back to the pockets of genuine warmth he sees of Changbin’s family every time they’re together, and this new, tenuous pleasantry he’s had with the group since Woojin left. He thinks about the multitude of desperate, rainy sad songs Changbin’s hidden from the rest of them on a hard drive in the studio, because they don’t match Stray Kids’ tone and musical direction. He thinks about how casual it’s become to feel lonely in their cramped, crowded rooms.

“I wanted free movie tickets,” Jeongin shrugs.

Changbin smiles, slower this time, but the carefully constructed, semi-permanent distance in his eyes fades a little after that when he looks at the maknae. “Okay,” he nods, half to himself. “Okay. Let’s go watch a movie."

**Author's Note:**

> something i wrote because changbin and jeongin.......... because changbin and jeongin, man.
> 
> i haven't written canon compliant fic like this since got7 days and it was nice dusting off the realism glasses for a night. plus changin is such an underrated pairing ahh, this was a fun change of pace ;u; 
> 
> comments and kudos would be much loved and appreciated ;u; stay safe!


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